We study the basic properties of an equally-weighted index of U.S. commodity futures from the perspective of a Japanese investor. We find that the returns on the U.S. equally-weighted commodity futures index maintain their basic properties, documented in Gorton and Rouwenhorst (2005), when...

Commodity futures risk premiums vary across commodities and over time depending on the level of physical inventories. The convenience yield is a decreasing, non-linear function of inventories. Price measures, such as the futures basis, prior futures returns, prior spot returns, and spot price...